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10.09.2007

Love...

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two. ~Captain Corelli's Mandolin

I found this quite by accident this morning and fell in love with it. I love the idea that after the "blossom" of new love, you find the true roots of deep and caring love. I think a vast majority of people who get divorced suffer this very problem, the "falling" out of love. In many ways, love is like a tree. In the spring, it bursts into color, showing off it's splendid blooms. Through the summer it basks in a warm glow, content and rosy. Then the fall comes, and the colors fade. One by one the leaves fall, and then the winter is upon it, cold and fierce, seemingly without end. How sad and all too frequent are those days when it seems harder to be together than apart, when nothing goes right and you think, "This is not what I signed up for.". It would be much easier to give up, the days of warmth and sunshine a mere memory. If one waits, however, and gives the tree the proper nourishment it needs to grow, it will weather the storms of winter, and one day, probably when you least expect it, you will see a tiny bloom of color. I think this is a lesson for all of us. Appearances can be deceiving, make sure to tend the "roots", and the fruit will follow.